Sarah Bonnell School

Headteacher's Weekly Message: 27th January 2017

This week candidates for the prestigious position of Head Girl have been busy canvassing support – campaign banners hang from the balcony in the piazza, stickers and posters are appearing on noticeboards and blazer lapels. The five candidates are all keen to win votes by impressing the school community. Next week Hannah, Aysha, Manisha, Iman and Khadeja, will be delivering manifesto speeches in assemblies and holding hustings in the Assembly Hall on Thursday. Sarah Bonnell places real value on student leadership and these girls show what it means to be proud of representing their school.

This week in PE the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign has been well underway with girls taking part in Zorb Ball activities. At Sarah Bonnell we always have a great range of after-school Activities. This is just one example of the exciting work PE do to promote an active life-style on top of the day to day PE lessons that students here enjoy.

There was also a really successful Girls Network event on Monday when our Year 10 students met their mentors, all professional women working at AOL, for the second time. Our students came away from the session buzzing and were clearly uplifted by the experience. They are already looking forward to the next session on 6th Feb!

We have also had a number of important visitors this week to help us review progress towards the school development priorities – Governors visits have taken place and an external expert visited the school on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of our ‘Gold’ Investors in People Award. All review visits gave positive feedback and praised the work we are doing to ensure continued success.

Five year 9 History students accompanied Ms Paine, Assistant Headteacher, to represent Sarah Bonnell at Newham’s Holocaust Memorial Day event at Stratford Old Town Hall. This annual event marks the national day to remember and learn from the Holocaust and subsequent genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia and Darfur. The students were privileged to listen to Holocaust survivor Harry Olmer recount his experiences of surviving five Nazi labour camps, enduring the most unimaginable conditions between 1942-1945. Students also heard poetry readings and musical performances, and visited an exhibition focused on the theme ‘How can life go on.’ In changing times it seems even more appropriate that we learn from the past in order to secure a peaceful future.